


Spaghettification and Other Extreme Sports

by SociopathicAngel



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 5 years post s1, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dubious Science, Hunk is the best bro, Lance just needs a hug, M/M, Multiverse, graphic depictions of nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 00:28:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9354359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SociopathicAngel/pseuds/SociopathicAngel
Summary: During their final battle with Zarkon and the Galra Empire, Zarkon creates a black hole capable of destroying the universe. Lance sacrifices himself and Blue in order to stop it... and ends up in an alternate universe where everything is just a bit not right.





	1. Event Horizon

Why did they even bother trying to actually plan things? It never went accordingly, and to be fair they usually did better when winging it anyway. Every single time they planned something out it would only blow up in their faces. In this particular instance, it had almost seemed as if things were going to pan out and _work_ up until the very end of the fight. They’d been so close. It was their last stand against the Galra, the final big battle against Zarkon’s empire that would either free the universe, or condemn it to Zarkon’s tyranny forever.

Victory had been so close, almost within grasp. They could practically see the after party on the horizon, but Zarkon just had to be a sore loser.

“Shiro, what do we do?”

Keith. The steady, level voice of Keith. Lance had no clue how he could _still_ be so controlled, not when Hunk was wordlessly shrieking in the background, not when Pidge was doing a personal best impression of a doomsday clock, not when Allura and Coran were trying to shout over each other about what exactly Zarkon had done even though they could all _see it in front of them_ , and certainly not when Lance himself was so panicked that he couldn’t seem to remember how to breathe. Yet there he was, a solid voice within the chaos. Lance could only grip to that thread of sanity, ground himself back in the now to actually face this problem.

“Princess Allura, Coran, is there anything we _can_ do?” came Shiro’s voice over the comms, raised in a way the exposed his own panic.

Lance had to tune them all out then, ignore the rapid fire exchange of ideas that would take too much _time._ He could only stare, feeling so infinitely miniscule before the monstrous void. Lance had never been afraid of the dark, but here… here, he felt cold.

“Pidge,” Lance said, breaking out of his trance. “Pidge, you’ve seen the reboot _Star Trek_ movies, right?”

“Lance, what does that have to do with anything right now?” Keith snapped. “Seriously, can you not focus just for once?! The Earth is about the be _destroyed_ and you’re asking Pidge about _movies?!”_

Lance ignored him, gaze still locked on the emptiness before him. “Pidge,” He repeated.

“Of course I have, but… Lance, I don’t really know if something like that could work? That isn’t even how they used it _in_ the movie and… Where would we even find- wait. The crystal, the Galra crystal back in the castle. That could work, but how-” Pidge cut off.

“Pidge, meet me at the hangar now. Guys, keep an eye on that thing,” Lance said hurriedly, already spinning his lion around and rocketing back with Pidge on his tail.

“Maybe you could fill the rest of us in on your plan here?” Hunk called out.

“No time, explain if it works!” Lance quipped.

He quickly switched to a private channel to Pidge, stamping down his rising nerves. There wasn’t time to argue or have a debate.

“Do you think it can work?” He asked.

“I mean, theoretically?” Pidge offered weakly. “It’s not like it’s ever been tested before. Zarkon made the black hole by imploding the crystal powering his ship, exploding another one might be able to neutralise it, but… Lance… you’d have to get close. I mean, _really_ close. I’m not sure you’d-”

“You leave that part to me and Blue,” Lance assured, trying to put on his normal show of confidence.

Pidge made a small sound over the line that Lance couldn’t quite decipher, but blessedly didn’t press the issue. Their lions had barely landed as they jumped out and set off at a sprint for the crystal. Thankfully, they hadn’t bothered moving it since Pidge’s earlier experiments.

“Okay, problem,” Pidge announced, standing over the control panel and typing rapidly.

“What?”

“I can overload the crystal’s energy no problem, but it would detonate before we could even get it out of the ship, let alone close enough to throw it into the black hole.”

“Okay, easy. So we don’t overload it until it’s close enough,” Lance offered. “We just hook it up to the lion so it can be done at the last minute.”

“Another problem. This crystal is beat up and it’s been shedding energy since it broke. I’m not sure it has enough left in it to counteract Zarkon’s. If we could pressurise it and then have an external catalyst to jumpstart the detonation, maybe…” Pidge mused.

Lance let his gaze drift back to his lion. “I can encase it in ice, then blast it with a laser once it’s in to set it off.”

“That could actually work. But… Lance, are you sure-”

“Let’s get this thing hooked up to Blue,” Lance interrupted quickly. “We don’t have much time.

Pidge stared at him for a moment longer, expression pained, but eventually gave a firm nod and went back to work. Lance thanked his lucky stars no one was going to have time to challenge him. He still wasn’t quite confident in his ability to pull it off. It was his idea though, his plan, and there was no way he was going to let anyone else take the risk.

_“You think you have won, Paladins? You think that because you have defeated my fleet, that you have crumbled my empire, that you have truly won? You took the universe from me, you have saved the galaxy, but in the end you have still lost!” Zarkon cackled._

_“Give it up, Zarkon,” Shiro called out. “It’s over.”_

_Lance edged his lion into a more aggressive stance, matching the formation of his team and feeling more than a little empowered. How could he not be? They had just kicked Zarkon’s butt with the entire Earth as witness to their awesome._

_“Voltron may have bested me, but shall we see how it fairs against the cosmos?” Zarkon mused. “So long, Paladins.”_

_Zarkon’s ship, sparking and beaten within an inch of its life, suddenly gave a massive shudder and let out a low groan. Slowly, the ship began to cave in on itself, all collapsing inwards to one singular point of pure blackness. The tiny dot sat motionless for a second longer before suddenly doubling in size, then again. Alarms began shrieking inside the cockpit, startling Lance nearly out of his chair._

_“Paladins, get out of there!” Allura’s voice screamed over the comms. “He’s somehow created a black hole! Move!”_

_She really did not need to tell him twice. Lance was already spinning his lion around as fast as the thing could move. The team landed on Earth’s moon, watching helplessly as the black hole gradually increased in size._

_“Shiro, what do we do?”_

“Alright, it’s ready to go,” Pidge declared. “Bring your lion in closer and I’ll hook up the control cables. They’ll detach when the crystal is fully overloaded. The crystal _has_ to detonate inside of the black hole, so you’ll need to be almost on top of it. Man, I really hope they’re actually like Syfy movies where it’s like a never ending hole and not what science has described where it’s like a massive vacuum of immense mass that is so powerful it stops time. Then we’d just see the crystal sitting there and not actually moving, or maybe the whole spaghettification thing-”

“Pidge,” Lance interrupted, “you are starting to really freak me out here so let’s just ignore science and respond to this like rational humans by throwing a really big explosive at it, okay?”

“Okay. Right, sorry. Let’s go.”

Hooking up the crystal to the lion was a rather quick affair, and Lance couldn’t help but feel like it _really_ should have taken longer.

“Pidge, Lance, whatever you’re planning in there you better hurry,” Allura said over the comms. “This black hole is continuing to grow and showing no signs of slowing down… I fear it may have the potential to swallow the entire galaxy if not stopped.”

“Or the entire universe!” Coran chirped.

“We’re about to head out now,” Lance assured. “Ready, Pidge?”

“Ready…” Pidge paused, grabbing Lance’s arm before he could head back to his lion. “Lance… You do realise… To get close enough to throw this in, you might not be able to escape the gravitational pull in time… Or even get away from the crystal before it explodes. Maybe we can find another way-”

“There’s no time, and if we wait much longer Earth and its entire solar system are going to be gone. And don’t even try offering to take it yourself. This was my plan, I’m the only one going to take this risk. It’ll be fine, alright?” Lance said.

Pidge pulled him into a crushing hug. “It better be.”

“Hey, we’ve already saved the universe once today. Luck is on our side, right?” Lance offered. “Let’s do this.”

They broke apart, Pidge offering him one last frightened smile before rushing off to the Green Lion. Lance, now seated in his chair alone, took a moment for a few deep breaths. He was doing this. He was _actually_ doing this. Shouldn’t saving the entirety of everything have a longer build up? Surely things couldn’t be happening this quickly, could they?

“You two going to fill us in on this plan?” Shiro asked.

“Zarkon created the black hole by imploding his ship’s power crystal, we figure taking the same kind of crystal and overloading it to the point that it explodes might destabilise the black hole enough for it to either tear itself apart or collapse,” Pidge explained, landing beside the team back on the moon.

“Where’s Lance?” Hunk asked.

“Lance is delivering the crystal,” Pidge said softly.

“He’s _what?!”_ Keith shrieked.

“There isn’t time to rig a proper detonator for the crystal, so there’s only about at ten second window from overload to explosion. Lance is going to manually overload it from within his lion and throw it in,” Pidge said.

“But why _Lance?!_ My lion is the fastest, I should be the one-”

“No,” Lance interrupted. “We needed to pressurise the crystal as well. It’s fragmented, and the only way to overload all of it at once was to encase it in ice.”

“So coat it and _I_ can take it from there,” Keith argued.

“You can’t,” Pidge stated firmly. “The crystal puts off heat, the only way to keep the ice from melting before it can get there is if it’s constantly applied right up to the overload sequence-”

“ _No!”_ Keith shouted. “There has to be another way to stop it. This is _stupid-”_

“Keith, it’s my decision. We don’t have time to argue. Also, I’m already like almost there so it’s really too late for take backsies. Allura, just on the off chance, you’ve heard our plan now. Will it work?” Lance asked, hands white knuckling the controls of his lion.

There was a few beats of silence, quiet enough that Lance was certain the rest of the team could hear how shallow and short his breaths were.

“Yes, I believe it will work,” She confirmed softly.

Lance was close enough that the alarms were starting to screech again. He pressed onwards, ignoring the sweat that dripped from his brow even though he had never felt so cold in his life. Yet, his hand was completely steady as it stretched over to cue up the controls for the crystal.

“Starting overload sequence. Fifty seconds till overload, sixty till detonation, starting now,” Lance announced.

_59_

“Lance, you throw that crystal as hard as you can and book it out of there,” Shiro ordered.

“I have to stay long enough to shoot it right as it’s about to detonate, otherwise it won’t be strong enough to stop the black hole,” Lance interjected.

The comm went silent again as that sunk in, then suddenly everyone was trying to shout over each other. Lance wasn’t entirely sure what language Keith was speaking, but he was pretty certain it was nothing but swearing.

_45_

Should the timer really be going that slowly? Surely it had been fifty seconds by now, right? Time had been moving so quickly before, why should it slow for him now of all times?

_40_

“You won’t have time to get out other there, you _idiot!”_ Keith was screaming.

“Lance, come on,” Hunk implored. “We’ll find another way. It’s not growing _that_ fast anymore, we have time-”

“The growth rate has not changed at all, Hunk,” Pidge cut in.

“Surely there’s a way the ship could launch the crystal instead,” Shiro demanded.

“Not within the parameters of  that overload sequence. We would have to rig an entirely new detonator and that would take more time than we have,” Coran denied.

“If it gets any larger we won’t be able to stop it from destroying this solar system, and it will only continuing growing from there,” Allura added.

_32_

Lance could barely hear them over the screeching alarms within his cockpit, and even those were almost drowned out by the nearly painful beats of his heart. The only light he could see were those within his lion. He knew the crystal would be getting steadily brighter as it powered up, but the gravity of the black hole was snatching it away before he could see it. His lion rumbled, a low sound that somehow managed to convey both its own fear and a note of comfort. Blue was with him.

_15_

“Preparing to release crystal,” Lance voiced, more to himself and the lion than his team.

The comm had fallen entirely silent now, whether that was because his team was simply watching or the black hole was interfering he had no idea.

_10_

He jerked the controls to fling the crystal as hard as he could into the void, then readied himself to fire, all the while trying to keep from getting sucked too far into the black hole.

_6_

The crystal was the only other light he could see besides his lion, a bright purplish pink within the black. He tried to ignore how the blue lights of his cockpit had begun to flicker.

_3_

The light dimmed briefly, then flared even brighter than before. He instructed his lion to fire a brief pulse from her tail, then swung them around and put everything they had into the thrusters. They continued falling backwards as blinding white light exploded around them. A faint beeping drew his gaze down to the console in front of him where the pilot eject button was blinking up at him. Lance tightened his grip and shook his head, trying to push just a little bit more to escape the gravity. He wasn’t afraid of the dark, but he was beginning to fear the cold.

_0_

 


	2. Schwarzschild Radius

He was spinning, all of the lights in the cockpit had died, everything beyond the lion’s eyes was a blinding white light and it felt as if the very air around him was trying to crush him. Why wasn’t he dead yet? Was he going to be slowly dragged into the black hole for the rest of forever? Is that what his team was seeing now? Him hanging motionlessly in front of the black hole? Had the crystal even _done_ anything?

The blinding whiteness suddenly vanished and Lance was thrown back into his seat with such immense force he could swear he felt his ribs pop. The lion was moving, still spinning out of control and unresponsive to his touch, but it was moving somewhere and it was moving _fast._ Lance held on with all he had, trying desperately to make sense of what he was seeing to figure out what was going on. His helmet comm crackled to life, voices suddenly screaming around him.

“I can’t catch him, he’s going too fast!”

Keith. That was Keith’s voice.

Oh, no. Was Keith in the black hole now too?

“Somebody get him!” Pidge shrieked.

“Lance!”

Keith again. What was _happening?_ He could barely make out a pale blue, flashes of yellow hills, and glimpses of white within the blue - all streaking by the dead eyes of his lion, and the cockpit seemed to have jumped at least ten degrees while the team was shouting in his ears. The view suddenly righted for a moment, just long enough for Lance to make out the massive dunes of sand ahead. Sand dunes that were approaching much too quickly.

Lance barely had time to throw his arms up to shield his face before they were slamming into the ground. He had no idea how long they scraped and tumbled along the dunes, sometimes going _through_ them as well, but eventually the lion rolled to a stop at the bottom of a particularly deep ravine. Lance hung limp in his chair for a moment longer, waiting for both his stomach and the lion to fully settle before slowly unbuckling. He stumbled his way down to the barely open mouth of his lion. Crawling through the gap was excruciating, and he couldn’t bring himself to do much more than lay sprawled across the sun warmed sand once free.

 _Warm_.

He curled his fingers into the loose grains, choking back sobs of pure joy. It was _warm._ He was _alive._

The sound of another lion landing jerked him back to his senses and Lance painfully pushed himself up onto his knees. When he raised his eyes, it was to the sight of Keith sprinting through the sand towards him. He threw his hands into the air, ignoring the sharp twinge in his side, and let out a howl.

Keith was suddenly there, dropping to his knees practically on top of him, helmet already tossed carelessly aside as he reached over to rip Lance’s off too, and then Lance found himself being yanked forward. He melted into the warmth of Keith’s lips, too overjoyed to even register the shock that this was _Keith_ that was kissing him. Lance pressed forward, kissing back for all he was worth and shivering at the curl of Keith’s fingers through the back of his hair. Keith froze.

Timidly, Lance pulled back, opening his eyes slowly in fear of what he’d find. Instead of disgust or shock, which is what he’d been expecting to see, Keith simply looked perplexed.

“What happened to your hair?” He asked.

“My hair?” Lance echoed, hand jerking up to touch. “Oh, please tell me it’s not gone. Is it pink? Did it change colors? Tell me, Keith! This is important!”

“It’s… shorter. A lot shorter,” Keith said, baffled.

Lance had just finished running his hands over his head. “What? No it’s not. It feels exactly the same- WHAT IS _THAT?!”_

Three enormous mechanical _wolves_ had landed around them. He watched in complete bewilderment as his team - _his team_ , exited the wolves and began racing towards them.

“What’s what? Lance, are you alright?” Keith asked, reaching for him.

Lance scrambled back, brain suddenly recognising every little bit that was _wrong_ here. Keith’s armor was all wrong, his hair was definitely not styled that way, and Pidge’s glasses were most certainly _not_ full circle lenses like that. His ribs chose that moment to remind him of their condition and he doubled over with a gasp of pain, clutching his side.

“We need to get him back to the ship and to a healing pod. Hunk, dig up the Blue Wolf and bring it back,” Shiro ordered, appearing at his side and putting Lance’s arm over his shoulders.

“She’s not a wolf,” Lance growled. “What’s going on here? Where’s my team?”

“Not a wolf? Did you hit your head on the way down?” Pidge chirped.

“No! Something isn’t right here! This isn’t-” Lance broke off in a cry of pain, nearly blacking out at the sheer agony piercing his side.

“Take it easy, kid,” Shiro commanded. “Let’s get you patched up.”

He was in too much pain to protest further, instead simply allowing himself to be half-carried, half-dragged back towards Shiro’s Wolf. He would get to the bottom of all this later, right after he stopped feeling like death. He didn't remember the trip back to Allura’s castle, or entering the healing pod. All that Lance remembered of all it was that it was _cold._

When the pod finally opened again, Lance pitched forward on a nose dive for the floor and directly into the warmth of someone’s arms. Warm. He clung to that warmth, trying to calm his shuddering breaths. Someone was talking to him, voice a low soothing murmur by his ear. Keith. It was always Keith.

Eventually, Lance managed to calm himself enough to look up at the concerned faces of his team.

No. Not his team.

“What happened?” Lance demanded, still clinging to Keith even though he knew he really _shouldn’t_ be. “How did I get here?”

“We were going to ask you that same question,” Shiro asked. “You are not our Lance. You came here in a _lion_. What’s the last thing you remember before you crashed?”

Lance took a moment, routing through his memory for anything that wasn’t the _cold._

“I was on the edge of the black hole, waiting for the crystal to charge. My team was screaming at me, and then they were just gone. I couldn’t hear anyone. It was just me and my Blue... we couldn’t escape the pull,” Lance gulped, starting to tremble anew. “Then there was this blinding light and everything started spinning and… it was so _cold.”_

Keith’s arms tightened around him, drawing him in. “It’s alright, you’re safe now.”

Everything in him was screaming _wrong_ , but he couldn’t help but lean further into the embrace. The team around him now appeared both pensive and concerned. It was Pidge that finally broke the silence.

“Lance, you ever seen the reboot _Star Treks?”_ Pidge asked softly.

“Of course I have,” Lance murmured.

“You just pulled an Ambassador Spock on us, Lance. Guess that answers the black hole question, right?”

“Yeah. No spaghettification or anything,” Lance laughed weakly. “So, what? I’m in an alternate universe? Multiverse theory is right?”

“We can only hope that’s the case, and that our Lance is now in your universe… where apparently Voltron is made of Lions,” Pidge added, squinting at him. “What do you even call yourselves? You’re not a pack-”

“Usually we say ‘team?’ I guess we’re a pride?”

“That would make sense I guess-”

“Focus,” Allura reprimanded lightly. “We need to figure out how to get the Lances back to their rightful universes. We can’t form Voltron with a lion, and they can’t form theirs with a wolf either. For now, this Lance could do with some rest.”

“You’re right,” Shiro agreed. “We’ll start working on a solution to all this. Keith, why don’t you help him back to your room?”

The team dispersed, Pidge muttering something about wanting to study the Blue Lion that vaguely worried him. With Keith’s help, he managed to get to his feet and they began shuffling down the hall.

“My lion,” Lance spoke up, “is she okay?”

“It hasn’t shown any signs of life since we brought it on board,” Keith said gently. “It might be waiting for you?”

Lance nodded, throat suddenly feeling tight. If he’d killed his lion…

“Wait! The crystal! Did it work? Did it stop the black hole?” He demanded, planting his feet and forcing them to a halt.

If it hadn’t… If all this had been for nothing… Lance wasn’t really sure what he would do.

Keith smiled at him, his face so open and warm it made Lance’s heart skip a beat. “It worked. You did it,” Keith said.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Lance breathed, nearly sagging to the floor in his relief.

Keith kept him upright, moving them along until they stopped outside Lance’s door. To his surprise, it was Keith that reached over and punched in the access code for the door.

“How do you know my code?” Lance demanded.

“Why would I not know it?” Keith fired back curiously.

Lance allowed himself to be lowered onto his bed, wincing a bit at his still sore ribs. Had his bed always been this large? And whose stuff was in here? He didn’t recognise most of it.

“You kissed me earlier,” Lance recalled, stiffening.

Keith paused, looking at him strangely. “Yeah?”

“Do you… Do we share this room?” Lance pressed.

“Of course we-” Keith cut off, eyes widening. “Are we not together in your universe?”

“What? No! Of course not! You - I mean, _my_ Keith hates me. He thinks I’m an idiot,” Lance added dejectedly.

Keith was frowning at him, and Lance could practically see the wheels turning in his head. “I used to hate you. My Lance, that is. I thought he was immature and reckless… I couldn’t help finding him attractive though, way more than I should’ve.”

“When did you get together?” Lance asked.

“After he got out of the healing pod from the bomb. I cradled him in my arms, we bonded-”

Lance doubled over in laughter, more out of hysterics than actual amusement. He couldn’t believe it.

“Let me guess, your Lance didn’t deny it afterwards?” Lance said weakly.

“No. Did you?”

“Yeah… I didn’t want to… I don’t know, but I couldn’t admit it. Not with everyone else standing around,” Lance sighed.

“We were alone when we talked about it. I guess that’s where the difference lies. Sorry for kissing you like that earlier, back on Earth… I thought… Well, I thought you were my Lance,” Keith said regretfully.

“No, no. It’s fine. I liked it. A lot. Just surprised me is all,” Lance said.

“Well, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable while you’re here. I can go back to my old room. You should rest, you’ve been through a lot today,” Keith added with a tiny smile.

“Yeah. Guess so. Thanks, Keith.”

Keith treated him to an awkward little wave as he left, and dear _lord_ how had he never noticed how adorable that man was? Lance had always found his little moments endearing, but never _cute._ Oh, boy. He was in trouble.

 

Everything was so _cold._

The air burned his throat with its chill, made his fingers stiff and numb. He couldn’t _think_ for how much he was shivering. Why wasn’t he dead yet? Surely the human body couldn’t put up with this piercing temperature for as long as he was.

The lights of the cockpit flickered once, twice… The familiar blue winked out, and this time it didn’t come back.

“Blue? You with me, buddy?” Lance called.

His voice felt wrong to his own ears. There was no sound here, none except the now overloud thrumming of his panicked heart. The white light beyond his lion’s eyes was fading into blackness, an inky darkness so smothering it seemed to consume all until everything was simply gone. Soon, even the deafening sound of his heart began to quiet, and still he was so _cold._

 

Lance jolted awake, very nearly striking out at whoever was touching him. His arms were brushed aside easily and a hand came down to cradle his face. Keith was perched above him, face drawn with concern, and he seemed to be saying something that Lance couldn’t make out over the hammering of his own heart. Lance jerked away, turning onto his side away from Keith to hide his face. The room was hot and Lance could feel himself sweating, and yet he couldn’t seem to break free of the ice.

The mattress shifted behind him and there was suddenly a body curling around him, arms embracing him and pulling him back into a firm chest. Lance immediately leaned back into him, desperately trying to soak up the heat radiating off him.

“You’re okay,” Keith murmured by his ear. “I’ve got you. You’re safe, you’re on the ship.”

The ship. Safe. He wasn’t in the black hole, he wasn’t in the ice. He was on the ship. With Keith. The wrong ship, the wrong Keith, but he was safe.

Lance let out a shuddery breath and twisted around to bury his face in Keith’s chest. This was wrong too. This wasn’t his Keith, this wasn’t his comfort to take. He didn’t even _have_ a Keith. He couldn’t help but wonder if anyone was comforting the other Lance, or if the other Lance even needed it. Maybe that Lance was stronger and could escape ice on his own.

“How did you know?” He asked once his heart had slowed and normal breathing seemed possible.

“I came to get you for dinner and you… seemed distressed. Sorry, I probably shouldn’t have-”

“No, it’s okay. Thank you,” Lance rushed out, now pulling away from the embrace with much more reluctance than he should be allowed.

“You alright?” Keith asked softly.

“Me? Of course. You mentioned food?” Lance very unsubtly redirected.

He rolled up and over Keith to escape from the bed, very nearly taking a header when the sheets got caught around his foot. Keith watched him with a bemused expression as Lance went through the motions of an exaggerated stretch and yawn before leisurely rising to join him by the door.

“You know, I think I actually like the short hair better on you than the mullet,” Keith mused absently.

The red paladin froze, eyes shooting wide as his brain caught up with his mouth. Lance had frozen too, but for a completely different reason.

“I had a _mullet?!”_ Lance shrieked. “No! That’s _your_ thing!”

“ _I_ have a mullet?” Keith yelped.

“The Keith in _my_ universe does. Oh, man. Now I _have_ to meet the other Lance just so I can shave that off his stupid head,” Lance groaned.

“Well… Maybe not all of it,” Keith suggested, beginning to edge back down the hall.

Lance squinted at him and hurried to catch up, deciding not to question that in favor of figuring out how to shave someone’s (his) head against their will. He knew himself, and if the other Lance truly was at all like him then he was going to put up one heck of a fight. This Keith most certainly did _not_ have a mullet. His hair was long on all sides instead of only in the back. Lance wasn’t sure if it suited him better that way or not.

The team was assembled around the long table when they entered, and Lance paused for a long moment before hesitantly taking what was normally “his” seat. Keith dropped into the seat next to him without looking an ounce out of place, so Lance let himself continue under the notion that this was still his seat. Blessedly, the food was still a green goo and tasted the same as far as he could tell, so he tucked himself into his meal and mostly let the others talk around him. He couldn’t help but be over aware of Keith’s entire presence. Just the knowledge that it was _possible_ had thrown him for more of a loop than being thrown into another reality.

Keith’s elbow jostled him, nearly making him drop his spoon, and he looked up to find Allura looking at him expectantly.

“Sorry, did I miss something?” He asked.

“I asked if you had a decent rest earlier,” She said, smiling warmly.

“Oh. Yeah, decent,” Lance replied, trying not to let his voice sound as hollow as he felt.

“I’m glad. Now, I’m sure you are more than ready to return to your own universe, and I assure you we are going to do the best we can to help you do so. We have an idea, and I believe it will work, but unfortunately it is going to take time to prepare,” Allura warned. “Theoretically, I should be able to use the ship’s controls to create a wormhole that can transport you back by using your energy as a tether. It will take some modifications, and we won’t be able to even attempt it until your lion is operational again.”

Lance nodded slowly, glancing around the table. “How long exactly are we looking at here?”

“To completely dismantle and reconfigure the wormhole generator?” Coran chirped. “A month at least.”

Lance choked. “A month? Can’t we… I don’t know, blow up another crystal or something?”

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple,” Allura sighed. “We could send you into another black hole like that, but we would have no guarantee of where you would end up. It’s likely you only came to _this_ universe because our Lance happened to be going through the black hole on this end at the same time. There is no way to know if he would be doing the same on the other end.”

“What happens if you guys need to form Voltron?” Lance demanded. “It probably won’t even accept my lion. What happens if _my_ team needs to form Voltron? Zarkon may be dead, but there are still a lot of his soldiers out there that will be trying to take control. They aren’t going to wait around for us, especially since they think the Blue Paladin is dead.”

The table fell silent at that, the team exchanging worried looks. Allura only nodded, eyeing him critically in a way that almost made him squirm. Almost. It was a near thing. It was Shiro that finally spoke up, going so far as to rise from his seat in order to properly draw their attention.

“Then it’s only more important that we get your lion back on its feet and start training. We don’t need to form Voltron to be a good team, but we _do_ need to be familiar enough with the lion to fight with it,” Shiro said firmly. “Hunk, Pidge, have anything for us?”

“We haven’t been able to locate any physical damage that could cause the lion to… do whatever it is it’s doing,” Hunk admitted. “It has some minor damage from the battle, but nothing severe.”

“Can I see her? Maybe she’ll wake up if I’m there?” Lance suggested.

Allura nodded, launching into a spiel about him not needing to ask permission to go anywhere and that he should treat the castle as he did his own. Lance wasn’t really listening to all that and was only kept in his seat by Keith’s mother henning until he’d finished his meal. As soon as it was gone, he was practically flying off down the halls with Keith scrambling to keep up. The ship was the same as he remembered all except for one minor little detail: the lights were green. All of the lights and technology here emitted a green glow instead of the vibrant turquoise he was so used to.

It was only another reminder of where he was - and more importantly, where he _wasn’t._

Blue was stretched out on her side in the hangar, the wolves sitting in a wide arc around her. It looked like someone had gone through the efforts of arranging her limbs so that she at least looked dignified. Lance was immensely grateful for that.

He stopped in the doorway, Keith nearly running into him at the abruptness, and closed his eyes. He was alone in his mind.

“I can’t feel her,” Lance whispered, slowly crossing the room to stand at her nose.

Keith went to stand by his wolf, watching, but not interfering. Hesitantly, Lance raised his hand and flattened his palm against the metal. Cold. She remained inert, his mind was still empty. More than ever he wanted to hear her, if for nothing else than to know he wasn’t truly _alone_ here. He needed something, anything really, that was from his world. He needed her openness, her playfulness.

Lance let his head fall forward to rest against her muzzle, letting out a long breath. Nothing, not even a whisper of her presence. He pulled back, keeping his hand on her for a moment longer before letting it drop. He wouldn’t give up on her yet. Maybe she just needed to rest too.

 

For four days, Lance did absolutely nothing with his life. His ribs were still too sore to train with the team properly, no matter what he tried he couldn’t seem to reach Blue, and sleep had gone from his most treasured activity to the most dreaded inevitability of his day. After the third night trapped within his nightmares, Lance had resorted to setting up an alarm to go off every two hours. Long enough to rest, not quite long enough to get trapped within the void. He also didn’t want to risk Keith happening upon him in the middle of one again. There was only so much humiliation Lance could take in a week and he was pretty sure he’d already overflowed that quota.

The fifth night, Lance didn’t even bother attempting to sleep. He sat in his room, waiting until he was certain the rest of the castle would be asleep, then slipped out of his room and tiptoed his way to the hangar. He still couldn’t feel Blue, but the mere sight of her was more than comforting enough. She was a reminder, a piece of solid proof that he’d made it, that he was alive.

Lance spent that night on the ground, leaning against Blue’s flank and staring blankly at the wall. The sudden brightening to the ship’s lights from their “night-time” dim to a day startled him from his dose. With one last touch to Blue’s side, Lance hurried back to his room before the others woke up. Keith had a habit of coming to get him for breakfast, and he’d really rather not have to answer any questions. Fortunately, this universe’s Lance was just as dedicated to his looks as he was. A little bit of makeup and all evidence of his sleepless night was erased before Keith even got there.

Lance didn’t go down to Blue every night, but after that he was there more often than not. Sometimes Pidge was there too, working on whatever nerdy thing that had caught Pidge’s interest at the time. Neither of them mentioned it, both understanding the need for quiet. The nights when Pidge was there too were secretly his favourites. Sure, they never spoke and kept almost entirely to themselves, but it was still nice just knowing someone else was there too. He still couldn’t sense Blue and sometimes the silence was suffocating. Having Pidge puttering around created just enough background noise to keep him sane. Not that he was at risk of losing his sanity, he hoped.

Once his ribs were fully healed, Lance began training with the team - or on his own during sleepless nights when the thought of sitting with Blue’s empty shell was simply too painful.

It was on one such night that Lance stumbled upon Keith, who seemed to be doing his absolute best to destroy anything and everything the training room could throw at him. Lance stood back and watched until he realised he was probably being a bit creepy.

“Couldn’t sle- WOAH! Hey, watch it! It’s just me!” Lance yelped.

Keith quickly withdrew his sword. “Sorry, sorry. Startled me. Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“No, I asked first,” Lance quipped. “Why are you killing things before breakfast?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Keith muttered, fully closing his bayard now. “You _should_ be sleeping, though. You’re still recovering-”

“No I’m not. Ribs are all fine, remember?” Lance reminded, giving them a thump for emphasis and then having to hide a wince.

“Still. You almost died, you’ve been through a lot-”

Lance grabbed his shoulders, forcing him to stop and actually look at him. Keith froze, staring at him with wide eyes. This close, Lance could see the dark circles under them. It fully hit him then, how selfish he’d been since he’d gotten here.

“So did you. We were in a huge battle, we all almost died. And I may be the one that thrown into another universe, but you had to watch your boyfriend get thrown into one too-”

“Husband, actually-”

“Sorry, husband- wait. You guys were _married?!”_ Lance shrieked. “Wait, stop. No, not the point. The point I was _trying_ to get at here was that even though I’m not your… husband, I’m still a friend, right?”

That didn’t seem to generate any response from the now completely immobile Keith. Lance sighed, running a hand through his already messy hair.

“Look, you guys have been trying so hard to make sure I know I’m not alone here and to help me with all this, but I think we’ve all kinda forgotten about you in this equation. Until we can get your Lance back… maybe let me help you too?” Lance offered weakly.

Keith gave him the tiniest hint of a smile and nodded. “Yeah, alright.”

“Good. Now when was the last time you slept?” Lance demanded.

“When was the last time _you_ did?” He countered.

“Nope, I asked first!”

Keith’s shoulders slumped and he turned his head away with a rough sigh. “I don’t know. It’s… difficult to get used to being alone again.”

Lance blinked. “Holy quiznak. I am such an _asshole._ ”

“What? No you aren’t-”

“I am a complete jerk, holy wow. Okay. Come on, bedtime,” Lance announced, hooking his arm through Keith’s to physically drag him out of the training room.

“Lance, what are you on about. Let go-”

“Hush, we’re bonding.”

Eventually Keith gave up the pretense of struggling and let himself be guided along instead of pulled. Lance made as close to a beeline for his room as he could, though he did trip over himself a few times. Once Keith realised where they were headed he began to slow down again, looking at Lance in confusion. Lance didn’t miss that tiny glimmer of hope in his eyes though, and it only strengthened his resolve… as well as his guilt. He released his hold on him once the door had closed behind him, noticing how Keith’s eyes swept the room almost anxiously before he relaxed.

“You kicked yourself out of your own room,” Lance said. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable,” Keith replied hollowly.

“I grew up in a huge family, but a small house. Not much makes me uncomfortable, Keith. If… it would help you sleep better to have me there, I’m not going to kick you out.”

“You shouldn’t have to-”

“It would help me too,” Lance added quickly.

As expected, Keith didn’t argue after that. He ducked into the connecting bathroom to shower off his workout while Lance changed and climbed onto the bed. Lance was secure enough to admit he’d found having such a large bed to himself was part of the reason for his restless nights too. His own bunk had been a twin, if it could even be considered _that_ wide, and was so packed with blankets so as to be completely enclosing. It was closest he’d been able to get to being crowded in by his siblings again. He wondered if this Lance had ever had a nest like his, and what had happened to it once Keith moved in. Maybe having just that one other person was enough for him.

Keith joined him a bit later, laying down so close to the edge of the bed Lance was sure he had to be partially levitating in order to not be falling off. The gap between them let in a chill against his side. Lance quickly rolled over, flinging out an arm and a leg to sprawl half on top of him. Keith stiffened again.

“If we’re going to share, we might as well get the full benefit out of it,” Lance muttered, voice muffled by Keith’s shoulder. “Unless you’d prefer I didn’t. I can move-”

Keith’s arms shifted enough for him to wrap them around him. “No. This is fine.”

Sleeping got a bit easier after that. There were still nights he would come out of a nightmare, jolting awake or gradually surfacing, and lay shivering until he could convince himself that _no,_ the blood in his veins was not really freezing, and _no,_ it was only dark because the lights were off. Having Keith there to draw warmth from, even if he didn’t always wake up from Lance’s nightmares, helped immensely to calm him. Some nights, Keith was still unable to sleep. He’d wait until Lance was asleep, or until he thought Lance was asleep, and he’d slip out of the room. Lance could only assume he was going to blow off steam.

Once, however, Lance had snuck out of the room after him, intending to visit Blue, only to find him in the hangar next to Red. They didn’t speak, and for a while they remained with their respective bots. At some point,  Keith did make his way over and sat down beside him, leaning back against Blue’s muzzle and letting his arm drape across Lance’s shoulders. They ended up falling asleep there and almost missing breakfast.

Lance filled his waking hours with as much distraction as he could. Coran was quickly running out of chores for him to do, and since he didn’t really understand the technology involved in the wormhole generator he had to help in other ways. Even if that meant just holding the flashlight. It’d taken about a week, but Keith eventually stopped trying to babysit him and would actually go off to do his own things during the day.

The first time the team had to go fight without him, Lance ended up having to lock himself in his room. Coran taught him how to use the ship’s weapons after that and the next time was a bit easier. The first time the team went to fight on the ground, however, he insisted on going with them. They’d trained together enough for them to be comfortable with him, and their fighting styles weren’t so different than that of his own team’s. Being able to actually be a paladin again, even in such a small sense, made an enormous difference. Both him and Keith slept more soundly that night than they had any night prior.

The night after that, Lance couldn’t relax. He felt on edge, like there was something he was _supposed_ to be doing. It kept him up all night, and he took full advantage of being first into the bathroom that morning in order to hide any evidence of it. No one seemed to notice, and they had a peaceful day, so Lance shrugged it off as a fluke.

It wasn’t. It took two more restless nights for him to give in, and he slipped out of the room the second he heard Keith’s breathing deepen. The walk to the hangar was made blindly, Lance both too tired and too careless to request the lights to come on for him. He didn’t even bother turning on the lights to the hangar once he’d reached it, instead stumbling his way over to Blue. Distantly, he was aware that the Red Wolf was awake, eyes glowing as it watched him. He didn’t care.

Lance crawled his way into his lion, shoulder getting snagged on a tooth he’d been too mindless to avoid, and curled up in his chair. It was completely dark inside the cockpit, not even the faintest bit of light visible. Lance sagged in the chair, closing his eyes and surrendering to the tug at the back of his mind.

 

Everything was so _cold._

There was pressure on his limbs, a burning in his lungs just on this side of uncomfortable. Above him was a sheet of foggy white, only clear enough in small patches to see through. On the other side of the barrier was a field of stars. Lance flattened a palm to the surface and shuddered. Ice. He was under the ice.

A faint knocking drew his attention back up where Keith’s face peered down at him from the other side. His team stood behind him, all watching him with stony expressions. Lance opened his mouth to call to him only to freeze as water flooded in. The burning in his lungs was growing stronger.

_Wake up._

Lance began to sink.

What little light was filtering through the ice grew murky, the only sound was the stuttering thumps of his own heart in his ears. The pressure grew stronger the further he sank, Keith’s face now just a rough silhouette, unreachable. Lance tried to move his arms, tried to swim back up. He was a good swimmer, he should have been able to move, yet he only continued to sink. His limbs felt heavy, his lungs were on fire, and yet he was still aware of the torturous chill of the water around him.

_Wake up._

Lance stopped struggling, stopped fighting the slow descent into the abyss. He let his lips part, giving in to the fire of his lungs. Below him, something began to roar.

_Wake. Up._

 

Lance snapped awake, arms flailing to get purchase on something, _anything_ around him. Two sets of hands gripped him, restraining his movements. Someone was shouting his name, trying to get his attention. Lance couldn’t focus, he couldn’t _breathe-_

Firm lips pressed into his, jarring him almost brutally out of his panic. They retreated a second later, leaving him gaping up at Keith’s scowling face. The scowl quickly melted into relief once he realised Lance was now with him. Lance let himself go limp, his lungs now seriously demanding he get some oxygen back into his system. The second set of hands released him then and Shiro moved into his line of sight, looking far more concerned than Lance had ever seen him…  and more than a little shaken up.

“What… what?” Lance gasped out.

“You weren’t in bed,” Keith said quietly. “You weren’t there and Red was practically screaming at me. I ran into Shiro on my way here and… I thought you were having a _seizure_ or something, Lance.”

Lance looked between them both, blinking owlishly and still heaving for air. “I… I couldn’t… There was something… _why is it so cold?”_ Lance gritted out.”

“Come on, let’s get you out of here,” Shiro murmured, gathering Lance up into his arms.

“Wait! Wait,” Lance pleaded. “There’s something. I just need-”

“We’ll figure it out, I promise,” Shiro assured. “You need to warm up and calm down first, alright?”

Lance nodded, numbly stumbling along with them. He couldn’t help but look over his shoulder at Blue as he was guided out of the hangar. He needed to go back to sleep. If he’d just stayed a little bit longer… Maybe. Maybe he could have figured this out.

 


	3. Singularity

He was sat on his bed, more blankets than he could count wrapped around him, Shiro and Keith talking about him in hushed voices across the room. Lance was too tired to call them out on it. Besides, he was too busy trying to figure out where all the blankets had come from at the moment.

“I need to go back,” Lance spoke up, drawing their attention to him. “I need to go back to sleep.”

“Now?” Shiro asked, confused.

“At the end, before you woke me up. I heard her. I heard Blue. I need to go back to sleep, and I need you to let me finish it.”

“Lance… you looked like you were about to die back there,” Keith said. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“But I heard her! That’s the closest I’ve felt her since we got here! That has to mean _something_ , right?” Lance begged.

“Maybe,” Shiro allowed. “But it also could have just been a memory. Keith is right, Lance. You weren’t looking so good by the end there. Obviously we can’t stop you from sleeping again, but from now on I think it would be best if you aren’t alone when you do. Just in case.”

Lance dropped his chin to his chest and glared at the floor. Shiro and Keith continued talking without him, not entirely trying to hide their conversation this time, but Lance couldn’t be bothered to listen in. He was exhausted, his body ached from exertion, and he wanted nothing more than to be able to go back to sleep. Maybe not to dream. Okay, definitely not to dream. As much as he wanted to bring Blue back, he also _really_ wanted to get some actual rest for once. If anything, he felt even more tired now than he had before falling asleep.

Gentle hands cupped his face, tilting his head back up to look at their owner.

“Hey,” Keith said. “Lance? You alright?”

Lance nodded as much as the grip on his head would allow. Keith let his hands from to his shoulders, pulling back enough to look down at him properly. Lance blinked up at him blearily, absently noting that Shiro had apparently left them.

“Good. Care to tell me what the _hell_ you were thinking?” He asked, voice strained.

Lance blinked. “What?”

“What were you _thinking?_ Leaving in the middle of the night, getting _inside_ the lion where no one could see you, and then falling _asleep_ in there?!” Keith snapped, jerking back to begin pacing the room. “What if Red hadn’t woken me up? What if no one had found you down there?”

“What?” Lance repeated.

“You could have died, Lance! I don’t know if it was the nightmare or if you were actually having a seizure but you were shaking so bad it took both me _and_ Shiro to hold you. Your heart was going _nuts_ and you were _freezing._ You-” Keith choked off, hands knotting into his hair.

Lance could only stare at him with wide eyes. His Keith had ranted at him loads of time, but never out of _concern._

“What if we hadn’t found you in time?” Keith whispered. “If you’d died…”

Keith turned away from him, hiding his face in his hands and trembling. Lance struggled out of his blanket cocoon, very nearly taking a header while he was at it, and surged across the room to encase him in a crushing hug.

“I’m sorry. I am so sorry,” Lance rushed out. “I didn’t mean to scare you, I’m sorry. I’m okay. You found me in time, there is no ‘what if’ here. You did it. I’m fine, we’re both here and alive. It’s okay. Hey, come on turn around. Look at me?”

It took some coaxing, but Keith eventually relented and turned to face him. Lance quickly brought his hand up to cradle his face, forcing him to look up at him just as Keith had done to him earlier. Keith’s eyes were red and watery, not quite spilling over but definitely threatening to, and Lance had to take a moment to rationalise that Keith was this upset out of fear for _him._ Something about that didn’t sit right with him.

“Hey,” Lance said. “You with me? You’re the logic and reason guy, remember? There are no ‘what if's’, none of that happened. What happened was I wandered off like the idiot I am, fell asleep inside Blue, had a _really_ bad nightmare, and you and Shiro woke me up. Now we’re back in the room, everyone is okay.”

Keith nodded slowly, still staring at him. Lance gave him a lopsided grin, hoping to alleviate some of the tension, and was woefully unprepared for Keith lunging forward and slamming their lips together. He let out a muffled squeak as he tipped over backwards. They ended up in a tangled heap on the floor, Keith’s face now pressed in his neck and somebody’s elbow digging very uncomfortably into his side. Neither of them moved for a few ticks, then Keith was scrambling back and off of him. Lance let himself have a moment longer before propping himself up to look at the other man.

“I… Shit, I’m sorry,” Keith stammered, hunching in on himself. “That’s twice in one night and I promised I wouldn’t…”

Lance sat up all the way, reaching out to give Keith’s foot a quick squeeze. “Didn’t I say before that it was okay? I’m not your Lance and I shouldn’t be a replacement for him, but I am _seriously_ not going to complain about you doing that. Maybe… don’t tackle me though? That kinda hurt?”

Keith ducked his head. “Sorry.”

“And stop apologising to me. Sheesh. I’m going to get all used to it or something and then once I get back I’m going to be backhanded by your rudeness again,” Lance joked.

“Am I that bad?”

“Nah. We just have our moments. C’mon, I’m still exhausted and you look about done in too. I’m sure Shiro won’t mind if we miss breakfast,” Lance added, extending a hand to help him up.

Keith accepted it with a tiny smile and let himself be shooed back onto the bed. This time, Lance didn’t have to be the one to instigate the cuddling.

 

Lance had been in the wrong universe for a grand total of twenty days.

Blue was still inactive, Coran was having a hell of a time figuring out the wormhole generator, and every time the team had to go fight a battle in space Lance was certain he was losing years off the end of his life from the stress. In all, it wasn’t actually terrible here. The nightmares sucked, sure, but they were still his team. He spent hours talking with Hunk, sharing stories from their days in the Garrison and of their adventures in space to see how their timelines matched up. Hunk taught him how to prepare a few of the meals he’d invented since leaving home. Lance had no idea when he’d ever be able to use this knowledge, or if his Hunk would even consider allowing him in the kitchen to begin with. Most of his team would be skeptical of that.

There wasn’t much he could do to help Pidge as all of the actual nerdy science stuff went over his head. Pidge was extremely fascinated in studying the lion and learning about her weapons systems, and proved to be an excellent gossiping partner as well. Shiro was… well, he was still Shiro, the super supportive Space Dad and enormous dork. Mostly, he helped Lance with his hand-to-hand combat, which he’d never quite gotten a full mastery over. He was also there whenever Lance needed someone to bounce ideas off of when it came to restoring Blue. Shiro was the most connected to his wolf, and in Lance’s universe his lion, so he had some meritable suggestions.

Unfortunately, none of them worked.

Keith… that was a bit more difficult. They didn’t bicker here, apparently. What would have annoyed his Keith and roused a fight merely made this one smile, as if he now found Lance’s antics amusing rather than insufferable. He still made a valiant effort not to treat Lance as he would his husband, but the man wasn’t completely perfect. He’d slip up now and then with little things - a caress here, a kiss on the shoulder at the sink in the mornings, a lingering good morning kiss while he was still too asleep to realise he shouldn’t. He almost always apologised afterwards if he caught himself, or appeared a bit guilty for it later once he realised what he’d done.

And Lance, well. He thrived off it. It had been so long since he’d been given such open affection, and the fact that it was coming from someone he’d been harboring a crush on since the Garrison… He was only human afterall. Lance knew better than to pursue it, it wasn’t his place here. That wasn’t going to stop him from enjoying what little he could get while he was here though. Who knew what it would be like if- _when_ he got home? Maybe the other Lance had told his Keith about their relationship? Maybe his Keith was repulsed by the idea.

Lance wasn’t sure how he’d handle it if that were the case.

So for now he was more than content to soak up every bit of affection he was given. Being a defender of the universe had many cons, and the biggest was that while you had the chance to meet a _lot_ of people, you didn’t stick around long enough to really connect with them. Not that he would have the time to have a relationship with anyone outside the ship. Apparently having a relationship _inside_ the team worked. Really well if he was to believe the whole marriage part too.

“Keith, you awake?” Lance whispered.

It was late and they’d both been lying in bed for hours already, but Lance knew neither of them had been able to settle yet. They’d spent the day assisting a small colony on a moon evacuate their solar system in order to escape their sun’s collapse. Lance had stood in the observation deck when it was all said and done, watching the star die. It would form a black hole eventually.

“Yeah,” Keith hummed back.

“Can’t sleep either?”

“No.”

“Can you... Nevermind.”

“No, what is it?”

“I was… I was wondering how it happened. How you and your Lance got together here,” Lance admitted.

Keith was silent, and it was only due to the fact that Lance could feel his hand raising to scrub over his face that he knew the paladin hadn’t fallen asleep.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Lance said quickly. “I was just curious.”

“It’s alright… I was thinking,” Keith assured. “You already know where it was different, that you… _he_ didn’t deny us bonding when he came out of the healing pod. We started hanging out after that. We’d train together, you’d force me to watch truly _awful_ movies.”

“Like what?”

“The worst was High School Musical-”

“You take that back.”

“Absolutely terrible.”

“Keith Kogane, do _not_ blaspheme!”

“Do you want me to continue or are we going to have this argument again? I won last time. You tried to compare it to Star Wars,” Keith said with disgust.

Lance shoved himself up onto his elbows, reaching over to slap the wall panel for the lights so he could glare at Keith properly. The little shit was openly grinning, eyes full of mirth. Well, Lance couldn’t stay indignant for too long in the face of that.

“Fine, go on. But we _will_ be revisiting this later,” He warned.

Keith waved him off. “Yeah, yeah. Anyway. We officially got together about a month after the healing pod-”

“I want details,” Lance pressed, scooting closer.

“I’m _getting_ there,” Keith huffed. “It was during one of our one-on-one sparring sessions, you kept cracking movie references to make me laugh and generally just being a distracting _nuisance_ like always. You ended up managing to tackle me and we were wrestling, and then we were… well, kissing. I freaked out a bit and tried to run away, you insisted we sit and actually talk things over. We agreed to give it a try, keep it only between us until we were sure it was going to work. Honestly, only Pidge and Coran ever knew. Up until a few months ago, that is.”

“Okay, Pidge I can understand,” Lance said slowly. “But… _Coran?_ How did _he_ know?”

“Well, _somebody_ had to marry us. There was a lot of crying involved in that ceremony,” Keith reminisced. “It wasn’t from either of us. Pidge found out because it’s _Pidge_ , and we needed a witness anyway, so.”

“So, we just got married. Secretly. And no one ever caught on?” Lance snorted.

“Not a bit. Hunk actually got really upset with you, he thought he was being replaced as your best friend. Especially when I moved in here. Coran kept dropping all of these hints too, but the team is apparently rather slow,” Keith laughed.

“How’d they end up finding out?” He asked.

“We had a battle with the Galra and I got hurt. You were screaming at me for being careless and trying to make you a widow before your time,” Keith said, rolling his eyes. “I shut you up by kissing you. Everyone was there. Hunk cried, Pidge was cackling, I thought Shiro was going to choke on his own tongue.”

Lance snorted, burying his face in Keith’s shoulder to muffle his laughter. He could feel Keith shaking from laughter with him.

“Man, that sounds great. I wish… Well, I wish I hadn’t been such an idiot in my world,” Lance sighed.

Keith’s shoulder shifted in what he thought was a shrug. “You’re still an idiot in this one.”

“Hey!” Lance objected, pulling back enough to swat him.

“What? You are!”

Lance let his head drop back onto Keith’s shoulder with an exaggerated groan. “And you’re still mean in this one too.”

Keith chuckled, reaching up to run his fingers through the back of Lance’s hair. Lance sighed, letting himself melt into the touch.

“Do you think there’s still a chance?” Lance asked quietly. “He barely tolerates me most days. I can’t imagine… this.”

“I know I’ve never actively disliked you. I thought you were kind of annoying at first, yet I still found you attractive back then. I can’t say for certain… I’d like to think so,” Keith replied.

“I hope so. I’m going to miss this,” Lance admitted.

Keith remained silent, his fingers never ceasing their soothing caresses. Lance fell asleep after that, and for once he dreamt of pleasant things, of close embraces and free flowing affection. He was warm all through the night.

 

“I just don’t understand where she could have gone!” Lance shouted, pacing back and forth in front of his lion.

“It’s hard to say,” Pidge sighed. “We still don’t really understand _how_ they’re sentient in the first place. Maybe she was left on the other side.”

“But I’ve _have_ heard her,” Lance growled. “In a nightmare, right before Keith and Shiro woke me up. She was there, I know it.”

“Didn’t you also almost die from that nightmare?”

“That is totally not the point!”

Pidge muttered something unintelligible, going back to fiddling with some piece of equipment Lance didn’t recognise. Lance knew he shouldn’t be ranting, shouldn’t be breaking their unofficial bond of silence. Coran had announced that he was beginning tests and that the wormhole should be ready within five days. Five days. That’s all the time Lance had left to figure out how to revive Blue. He was steadfastly ignoring the part of him dreading the fact that he only had five days left with Keith too. It wasn’t right of him to grieve that, not when the other Lance was over there. The Lance that actually _had_ lost a relationship.

For now, his focus was on Blue.

“Is… Is there any way you could hook up something to monitor my vitals or whatever?” Lance wondered. “So I can let myself go through the dream and only get woken up if I’m, like, legit going to die?”

“I mean… It’s a possibility. Would Keith and Shiro agree to it?” Pidge asked.

“Probably not… I feel like that’s the answer though. You know, like the pull you felt that led you your wolf? It’s like that. I need to finish the dream,” Lance said firmly.

“How do you know that you weren’t having one of those ‘life before your eyes’ moments because you were about to kick it? It could’ve been a memory-”

“No. I’m sure of it.”

“Get their permission and I’ll see what I can do,” Pidge offered.

Lance grinned, sprinting over to sweep Pidge up in a hug. He ignored the profanities and half-hearted kicks thrown his way. Once the angry paladin was returned to the ground, Lance took off to hunt down Shiro. He felt more confident in his ability to convince Shiro over Keith, but having Shiro’s support should be enough to sway the latter. At least, he hoped so.

In the end, it took two whole days to get Shiro’s permission. The following argument with Keith was one of the worst shouting matches Lance had ever been in in his life, which is saying a lot considering how much he used to bicker with his siblings. Lance ended up winning that fight as well by giving up all his decency and aiming low.

“Look,” He’d said, dropping his voice so suddenly that Keith had been startled out of his tirade. “I’m going to do this, I _have_ to do this… And I would feel a lot better if you were there with me, but I understand if you won’t. I really would prefer not to die, I think that goes without saying. This is the answer to Blue. I can _feel_ it. She’s trapped in there somewhere, and I’ll never be able to get to her unless I do this. Please help me?”

Keith had slowly approached him, jaw set in a way that’d made Lance brace for a hit. He didn’t. He dropped his forehead against Lance’s sternum, so mad he was visibly shaking, but he hadn’t hit him.

“As if I’d let anyone else watch over you,” He’d sighed.

The first of the last three nights was a dud. Lance had a nightmare, woke himself up from said nightmare, and then couldn’t get back to sleep. It hadn’t felt right anyway. He hadn’t felt the pressure around him, hadn’t had anything to fight against.

Halfway through that day, Lance remembered the buildup to it. He hadn’t slept at all leading up to that night, he’d been so exhausted he couldn’t even think straight. Contrary to popular belief, Lance actually _had_ payed some attention during school and in science class in particular. In order to recreate the event, he decided to recreate the circumstances. Keith was more than furious about this announcement, but he didn’t try to stop him. He stood by, watching as Lance spent more time in the training room than he had ever spent in his life. Lance even went as far as forcing himself to stay up all that second night and going at it again in the next day. By that night, what was supposed to be his very last night there, Lance actually felt like death.

“I don’t understand why you’re rushing this,” Keith snapped after dinner. “Just because Coran gets the generator set up doesn’t mean you have to leave right that very second! Is it really so bad for you here that you’re desperate enough to _kill yourself_ to leave?!”

“You know that’s not true, Keith. Don’t you want _your_ Lance back?” Lance sighed.

“Of course I do, but…”

“I can’t get home unless I get Blue back. Maybe the Blue Wolf isn’t having this problem and they’ve figured out the whole generator thing too. If they haven’t, it’s up to me to get back and tell them how. Or if they have… I don’t know, there’s always the chance that even if I did die over here, you’d still get your Lance back,” He added weakly.

“Or just the opposite too. Are you really going to take that risk? That you’d be leaving _your_ Keith over there wondering if you’re ever coming back?” Keith demanded.

Lance snorted. “I thought we already established that my Keith situation is a lot different than it is here. Here’s what’s going to happen, alright? I’m going to wake up Blue, I’m going to go back to my universe and make sure that Lance makes it back here. You get your husband back, I go back to being the charming and secretly lonely team bachelor. Simple.”

Keith glared at him, arms crossed over his chest and standing practically as far away from him as the room would allow. Lance didn’t really know what he expected here. With a massive sigh, Lance crossed the room to stop in front of him, reaching out to gently run his hands over Keith’s shoulders.

“Hey, I know you’re scared. I am too,” Lance admitted softly. “We can do this, and it’s all going to be okay.”

“You can’t promise that,” Keith growled.

“No, but I can believe it. I’m not in any rush to get out of here, but I do want Blue back. It’s not fair to her to leave her there if there’s a chance I can help her,” Lance said firmly. “You’d do the same for Red.”

Keith’s shoulder’s slumped in defeat. “I know.”

Lance gently guided him over to the bed, not relenting until they were both under the covers and facing each other on their sides. Lance was so completely exhausted that he could’ve passed out at that very second, but he powered through it. Keith was staring at him in silence, eyes flickering over his face as if desperately trying to memorise it for the last time. Lance gave him a small smile, leaning in to press a lingering kiss to his forehead.

“Goodnight, Keith,” He whispered. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“You better,” Keith breathed.

Lance let himself relax, finally closing his eyes… and remaining frustratingly conscious. After a bit, he felt Keith’s breathing even out into sleep. They were wearing matching bracelets that would alert him should Lance’s vitals plummet, which Lance had strongly demanded be a thing so that Keith wouldn’t stay up all night to watch him. Not that that had stopped him from doing it anyway the first night.

Lance tried to quiet his mind enough to sleep, yet still felt restless. All his previous exhaustion had simply vanished, leaving him with a restless sort of energy. He opened his eyes, blinking at the sleeping face of Keith for a long moment, then very gingerly slipping out of the bed. There was a tugging at the back of his mind, just below his awareness, and he allowed it to guide him once more out of the room and down the hall. He was dimly aware of passing Shiro on his way to the hangar and that the older man - after a brief failed attempt to get his attention - silently followed along after him.

The restless energy had faded, leaving in its place a hazy sort of tiredness that was getting stronger the closer he got to the Blue. He had just enough left in him to make it up into the cockpit and collapse into the chair.

 

“Lance, this is stupid. You don’t have to do this,” Keith growled, tugging on his arm.

Lance shrugged him off, looking down at the dark mouth of the cave in contemplation. The opening was narrow, too much so for Keith’s broader shoulders even without his armor. Lance, however… He could fit.

“Well, I’m definitely not sending Pidge,” Lance scoffed, kneeling to get a better look. “Someone has to go in after her.”

“Lance, I hate to say it, but it’s only a cat. I know you love her, but she’s not worth risking your life over too,” Keith argued gently.

Lance looked up at him, frowning, and was momentarily blinded by the bright summer’s sun. He blinked it off and turned back to the mouth of the cave. There was a chill in the air here, one that wasn’t present only a few feet away. It was warm out, but down there it was freezing. Blue wouldn’t last very long in there.

“No, I have to go in. I couldn’t live with myself if I abandoned her in there,” Lance declared. “Get some rope. I’ll tie it around myself so I can find my way out, alright?”

“I don’t like this.”

“Are you going to help me or not? I could go without the rope-”

“No! I’m getting it!” Keith snapped, stomping off.

Lance leaned over the edge a bit, trying to make out just how far of a drop it was. He couldn’t quite tell, even with the lights on his helmet. Hopefully it wasn’t too far of a straight drop. He looked up again as Keith returned with an armful of rope.

“There has to be another way to find her. This is _stupid-”_

“Keith, it’s my decision. We don’t have time to argue, Blue could be hurt down there,” Lance added. “Help me tie this, would you?”

Keith complied, fashioning a quick harness out of the ropes and tying off the very end around a thick tree, giving it a few hard tugs to test it. Lance made his way back to the edge, debating if he should simply jump or try to repel down. From this angle, he could tell that it wasn’t so much a drop off as a steep downwards slope. He could probably slide down.

“I still think we should wait for help,” Keith muttered angrily behind him.

“It’ll be fine. I’ll find Blue and get out before the rain even starts. Don’t hold the rope, I’m going to slide down. Be ready to pull us out, yeah?” Lance said.

“Yeah, yeah. Be careful.”

Lance gave him one last grin before pushing off the edge. Fortunately, the rock was worn down smooth enough not to scrape him as he slid down into the cave. It was startling just how quickly the light from the sun vanished. Soon, all that was left was the glow of his headlamps. Lance jolted to a halt on a flat ledge after what felt like ages and quickly looked back the way he’d came. The mouth of the cave was at least forty feet back and up, Keith’s silhouette still visible despite the distance. Lance took a moment to wonder how the hell he was going to get back out.

Somewhere off to his right, a faint cry sounded. Lance stood, carefully picking his way across the ledge until he reached the end. The meowing started again, and this time he was able to tell it was coming from further down.

“I have to climb further down,” Lance announced.

“Lance, I don’t like this,” Keith replied over the comms. “I think the storm is coming in faster than we thought.”

“I can hear her, it won’t take long,” Lance assured. “Hold onto the rope now, I don’t want to fall.”

Lance carefully laid down flat on his stomach, inching backwards until his hips were all the way over the edge. He felt around until his foot caught on a rock, then began slowly edging his way down. It was slow going, especially since he had to feel his way to the next foothold. After a few moments, he landed on the solid ground of a tunnel that branched off endlessly in both directions. A breeze was flowing through it, cold enough to cut through his armor and draw a shiver from him.

“Blue!” Lance called out. “Here, kitty kitty. Where’d you go, girl?”

He stopped, listening. The mewing started up again, still off to his right but much further away now. Lance gulped, looking back the way he’d came. He could only barely make out the light of the cave opening now. Lance took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and trudged on.

“How much rope do I have left?” He asked absently, having to feel his way along the wall.

His headlamps couldn’t seem to penetrate the inky blackness of the cave.

“About forty or so feet. Lance, I really think you should start heading back,” Keith pleaded. “The wind is picking up out here.”

“I think I’m getting close. Just a little bit longer.”

“Hurry up!”

Lance pressed on, stumbling when the solid wall beneath his hand was suddenly gone. His arms pinwheeled as he tried to regain his balance, suddenly on the very edge of a cliff. Lance gave a shout of surprise and threw himself backwards towards solid ground.

“Lance?! Lance, what is it?!” Keith shouted.

“Fine! Everything’s fine! Found another drop off, is all- Wait! I can see her! She’s on the other side!” Lance cried in relief.

He moved back towards the edge, trying to find a way around it. Blue was huddled on a small ledge on the other side, dark grey fur puffed up and eyes wide with fear. One look at her frightened face was enough to strengthen his resolve. He was right to have come after her, and he’d be damned if he turned back now.

“Can you reach her?” Keith asked.

“Maybe… I’m looking.”

Lance gave a tug on his rope, testing how much slack he had left. It should be enough to make the jump, it didn’t look that far away. Last resort, he decided. Lance knelt down across from her.

“Hey, sweetheart,” He cooed. “It’s okay, I’m here. C’mere, Blue.”

The frightened cat turned her owlish eyes towards him but made no move away from where she was pressed back against the wall. Now that he was really looking he could see a darkness to the fur around her back leg.

“Keith, I think she’s hurt,” Lance said. “I’m going to try to get to her.”

“Be careful, Lance,” Keith repeated. “And _hurry._ It’s starting to sprinkle out here.”

Lance pulled as much of the rope he could down to him and measured the distance again. He should be able to make it without a running start. With another deep breath, Lance hurled himself across the open space… and very nearly landed on top of the already terrified cat. Blue turned to flee, tripping over herself in her haste, and slipped over the edge.

“Blue!” Lance shrieked, lunging after her in a desperate attempt to grab her.

He missed and quickly scrambled to peer over the side, breathing out a massive sigh of relief when he spotted her a bit further down on a much larger ledge.

“What happened?!” Keith demanded.

“She tried to run and fell over the edge. I can still see her. I’m going to climb down,” Lance said, already moving to swing his legs over the side.

He got a few feet down and was nearly yanked off the wall when his rope suddenly pulled tight. Lance yelped, digging his fingers into his handhold for all he was worth. She was just out of his reach…

“Lance, you need to get out of there _now,”_ Keith ordered. “It’s starting to really rain out here.”

“No! I’ve almost got her. I need to untie myself-”

“Don’t you _dare_ -”

“I won’t leave her!” Lance shouted, already ripping off the harness as fast as he could with one hand.

“Lance, if you don’t start climbing back out now you won’t have time to get out of there, you _idiot!”_ Keith screamed back.

Lance ripped the rest of the harness free, mentally estimated the distance between him and Blue, then pushed off the wall with all he was worth. This time, when he landed, he grabbed Blue before she had a chance to run away again. With his hands occupied, he had no way to prevent himself from colliding head first into the cave wall.

“I got her!” Lance crowed victoriously, shaking the stars out of his vision.

There was no response from Keith. Lance frowned, reaching up to touch his helmet. One of the headlamps flickered dangerously at his touch. Blue gave a frightened mew in his arms, snuggling more securely in his grip. He gave her a few comforting pets as he tried to figure out how he was going to climb out of here. His planning was disrupted by the sudden trembling of the ground under his feet, met with a distant roaring.

Lance slowly looked up to where his rope was still dangling, entirely out of reach. A few seconds later a wall of muddy brown water came pouring over the edge. Lance let out a shout, curling himself protectively around Blue, and felt the water snatch him off the ledge as if he was nothing.

They fell.

Lance held on to Blue as tightly as he could, taking the brunt of every rock they were thrown against. He didn’t know how long they fell, only aware of when they stopped once they’d crashed into what felt like a massive underground lake. The damaged headlamp had gone out, leaving him with just enough light to see the debris floating passed his face. Lance kicked for what he hoped was the surface, immensely relieved when his head broke the surface. He quickly made sure Blue’s head was above water and began swimming. He couldn’t see any solid ground, but he wanted to get away from the crushing force off the pouring water as quickly as possible.

Eventually, his weak excuse of a light was enough for him to pick out a large rock formation jutting out of the water. Lance pulled himself up it, arms screaming in exertion. Blue had wasted no time in struggling free from his grip and scaling it herself. She was waiting for him at the top, eyes huge and visibly shivering from the cold. Lance settled her into his lap once he sat down. He pulled off his helmet, trying to see how damaged it was. Unfortunately, his only light source was attached to said helmet. He returned it to his head.

“Keith? Keith, can you hear me?” Lance asked.

Nothing. The thundering of the water suddenly lessened, then stopped entirely. Lance was plunged into silence, the sound of his own breathing entirely too loud to his own ears. He hunched in over Blue, trying to give her any warmth he had left. She shifted, stretching up to nuzzle her head under his chin and starting to purr. In the relative silence of the cave, her purr sounded much too loud to have been made from such a tiny body.

“I’m not leaving you, girl,” Lance murmured. “I’ve got you.”

Something tapped his foot and Lance cautiously lifted his head to look down. A stick was floating by, having bumped into him on its way. Lance could’ve sworn the water hadn’t been nearly that close earlier. As he watched, it slowly crept up the rock to touch the back of his ankle. Lance drew his legs in, keeping Blue close to his chest, and let out a shuddery breath. She continued to purr as if she was the one trying to comfort him now. Lance pressed his face into her damp fur and settled in to wait.

He didn’t know how long they waited for the water to claim their rock, how long they sat with only each other in the darkness of the cave. Lance had to stand eventually, unsure why he was prolonging the inevitable, and even that didn’t last long. He found himself treading water, Blue perched precariously on his shoulder and still purring away. At first he’d been a bit resentful of it, that she wasn’t taking it seriously, but as his arms began to slow, sluggish in the cold, he recognised it for what it was: she didn’t blame him. She didn’t blame him for deciding to enter the abyss, and she didn’t blame him for having endangered her in the first place.

Lance closed his eyes and let the ice encase him.

 


	4. Escape Velocity

Lance regained consciousness gradually, eyes slowly blinking open to the familiar blue glow of the cockpit. A deep, rumbling purr warmed him to the core and he slowly stretched himself out. He was in his chair, legs and back a bit stiff from having been curled up in it for so long. The holoscreens around him were lit up in their vibrant blue, and when he hesitantly sat up all the way he could see that Blue was no longer laying on the ground.

Lance sprang to his feet and threw his arms in the air, accidentally knocking one of the controls and sending his lion stumbling to the left. He quickly righted her, apologising profusely, then quickly moved to a safer spot to continue his victory dance… which turned him around enough to notice the two paladins watching him. Shiro was smiling at him, all warm and proud, and Keith was… looking very much like he’d like to run Lance through with his sword. Lance decided to ignore that and promptly threw himself at the man in a crushing hug.

“She’s back!” Lance cried. “It worked, she’s back!”

“Yeah, and you _literally_ died in the process,” Keith growled, the bite of his words soothed by the strength of his returning embrace.

“I did?” Lance asked, pulling back.

“Only for a few seconds,” Shiro assured. “You came back before we could even attempt to help.”

Lance transferred his gaze from Shiro to the scowling face of Keith. “Um… Good morning?” He offered weakly.

Keith let out an enormous, world weary sigh and dropped his forehead against Lance’s. He stayed that way for so long Lance started to actually worry.

“Good morning, you jerk,” Keith muttered.

They separated, Lance splitting into a huge grin that Keith tiredly returned. Lance was reluctant to leave the cockpit, but now that he could actually _feel_ Blue in his head again it didn’t seem all that bad. He let himself be steered down to breakfast, elated even though he still felt half frozen.

“Lance!” Allura greeted. “I am happy to hear about your lion! And just in time too, Coran has finished running his tests. We can get you home right after breakfast.”

Lance hesitated, not missing how Keith stiffened beside him.

“That sounds great,” Lance said. “If it’s alright… I’d like to give Blue a breather first, just to make sure she’s okay.”

“Of course! I’m sure Pidge and Coran would be more than willing to give her a look over as well,” Allura added.

Lance gave her a grin, settling into his seat beside Keith. The team was in high spirits and he tried to engage them as much as he could. There was still the nagging anxiety that the wormhole wouldn’t work or that somehow things would backfire. He tried desperately to put those fears aside for now, wanting to enjoy what could very well be his last meal with the team.

Lance followed Pidge, Hunk, and Coran back to the hangar after breakfast to look over Blue. She purred in greeting when he entered, instantly putting his mind at ease. He helped them look her over the best he could, and when they found her to be in perfect condition he had no choice but to agree to leave. Logically, he knew they were wanting to get him safely home just as much as they wanted their Lance returned, but he couldn’t help but feel rushed. He promised to meet them on the bridge once he’d collected what few things he had from his room.

Once out of sight, Lance broke into a sprint for his room. Keith was there, just as Lance knew he’d be, and Lance’s heart stuttered a painful beat at the sight of him. He stopped a step inside the doorway, chewing on his lip and waiting for Keith to look up at him. The red paladin’s gaze remained stubbornly lowered.

“Hey,” Lance called softly.

“It’s time, isn’t it?” Keith asked.

“Yeah… You gonna come see me off?”

“Of course. I was… I just wanted to…” Keith sighed, finally looking up at him.

Lance moved to him then, kneeling down in front of him and taking his hands. “You’re not going to be here alone for long. I’m going to make sure your husband gets back here, I promise.”

Keith gave him a watery smile.

“Don’t you start crying on me,” Lance ordered. “This is a happy ending. _Happy._ ”

Keith rolled his eyes, letting Lance pull him to his feet. “Right. Be careful?”

“Of course. Hey, um… I know I shouldn’t ask, but just in case… when I get back, if he…” Lance cleared his throat and took a steadying breath. “One for the road?”

Keith huffed out a laugh, grabbing Lance by the back of his head and hauling him in for one last searing kiss. Lance leaned into it, savouring every second and trying to commit every detail to memory. He hated himself for pulling away and couldn’t stop himself from pressing his face into Keith’s neck, letting his arms wrap around him. Keith hugged him back just as fiercely, his hand clenching almost painfully on the back of his neck.

“I hope you get to have this,” Keith whispered. “When you get back, I hope you can have this. You deserve it.”

“You better take good care of the other me when I send him back here,” Lance choked out. “I’ll find a way back here to kick your butt if I hear you’re not.”

They both tightened their grips for a moment longer, then slowly pulled apart. With one last weak smile, Lance stepped away to gather up his bayard and change into his armor. They made their way to the bridge together in a heavy silence. Everyone was waiting for them there, all buzzing with a nervous sort of excitement. Allura waved him over, and he numbly gave her his hand. She was talking, explaining what was about to happen, but he wasn’t paying attention; he was trying to swallow around the lump in his throat and blinking on suddenly dry eyes. A very large part of him didn’t want to leave. That part was clinging to Keith, to the idea of that relationship. The rational part of him knew that _this_ particular relationship wasn’t his to have. That part of him was excited to get home, to see if maybe he could make one of his own.

One look back at Keith, at the ring still on his left hand, sealed it. He had to go, if for no other reason to give Keith back his real partner.

“Lance?” Allura called, apparently not for the first time.

He turned to her, shoving past his turmoil.

“Do you want me to close the wormhole as soon as you’re through, or should I keep it open so that you can try sending our Lance back?” Allura asked.

“That one. The second one,” Lance said numbly. “Guess I’ll go get Blue now.”

Lance turned back to the team, unsure what to say. Hunk, blessed Hunk, made the decision for him by initiating a group hug. He gave everyone individual hugs after that, including one last lingering embrace with Keith, and then departed for the hangar alone. Blue was waiting for him, he could feel her excitement in his mind. After the long month without her, just settling into his chair already felt like returning home.

“Alright, let’s go,” Lance hummed.

With a rumbling roar, Blue launched them out into space. The Voltron Wolves howled after them almost as if in salute. Lance didn’t give himself the chance to look back at the Castle, didn’t allow himself a moment’s hesitation before flying full throttle into the wormhole. He had to remind himself that this was different, that it definitely wasn’t a black hole, and that no he really wasn’t cold.

They shot out the other end and Lance immediately had to pull up to avoid slamming into the broadside of the Castle. His comms exploded to life in his ears, making him wince and grin at the same time.

“Lance! Lance is that you?!” Hunk shrieked.

“That’s Blue!” Pidge shouted.

“Quiet,” Shiro urged. “Lance, can you hear us?”

“Shiro!” Lance cried, barely stopping himself from crying in relief. “Oh _please_ tell me I’m in the right universe now.”

“You certainly are,” Allura responded warmly. “The hangar is open for you, Lance.”

“Is the other Lance still here?” He asked.

“He’s here with us. We were just about to open our own wormhole to send him home,” Coran added with a hint of a sulk.

“Great! I need to talk to him real quick!” Lance said quickly. “Landing now!”

He’d barely waited for Blue to land properly before he was flinging himself out of her mouth and rolling the landing. Lance was seconds away from sprinting through the door when it suddenly slid open and he found himself literally tackled to the ground by Pidge. Once he’d regained his footing, Pidge still dangling from his neck, Hunk picked _both_ of them up in a crushing hug. Lance had to take a moment to make sure his ribs hadn’t been recracked when Hunk finally released him, and he quickly spun to face the rest of the group. Coran was a blubbering mess and Allura was grinning at him, her mice all waving excitedly from her shoulder. Lance let himself be embraced briefly by Shiro, trying not to let it bother him that _his_ Keith was standing back from the group. He was smiling, but made no move to greet him.

Lance turned his attention to the other him and stopped dead in his tracks, dropping his head into his hands with a loud groan.

“Oh no,” Lance moaned. “He really _wasn’t_ kidding about the mullet.”

The other Lance snorted. “Yeah, I know. It’s really that bad, isn’t it? I’ll shave it as soon as I get back, promise.”

Lance paused for a moment before huffing out a breathy laugh. “Maybe not all of it, alright? And between you and me… I think you’re in for a better homecoming committee then I got, so don’t worry, alright?”

“They’re waiting?” He asked excitedly.

“ _He’s_ waiting,” Lance specified. “Go get ‘em, champ. Allura’s holding the way home open for you on the other side.”

The other Lance went through his goodbyes, notably much quicker than Lance had, and took off for his Wolf. Lance followed his team, _his_ team, back up to the bridge, skidding into the room just in time to see the other Lance disappear through it. He was practically tackled yet again, this time by a blubbering Hunk. Eventually, he was dragged down to the lounge where he could barely get a word out over all their questions. He told them about the other universe and their Wolves, how the lights were green and Allura’s mice were tiny finches instead, how he had lost touch with Blue - which apparently hadn’t  been a problem here. Lance, under Pidge’s insistence, described how he managed to get her back. His team doesn’t interrupt him for this story, and while he doesn’t go into the _exact_ details of the nightmares, they seem to be able to tell how bad it was anyway. Lance steadfastly did  _not_ mention Keith.

Lance starts filling them in on the happier parts of stay in a very, very obvious shift of conversation that no one calls him on. He spends the rest of the evening fielding questions about the other universe until, after the fifth time he stops to yawn, he’s ordered off to bed.

Lance tried not to let it bother him that throughout the entire conversation, Keith hadn’t spoken a word. Hunk accompanied him back to his room, and Lance had to take a moment to stop and look around it once they got there. It was almost exactly how he’d left it, save for a few things the other Lance seemed to have moved around. The tiny twin bed was covered in its normal mound of blankets, a few articles of his clothing were scattered about, his blue Voltron robe and slippers were outside the bathroom door. It was entirely devoid of Keith… just like it was supposed to be.

He sat down heavily on the tiny bed, allowing himself to slump into Hunk’s side when his friend sat beside him. Hunk lets him lean on him for a long time, neither of them saying a word. Lance was incredibly grateful for Hunk. He didn’t know how well his sanity would have held up if Hunk hadn’t been with him when he left Earth.

“Tell me about the other Lance?” Lance requested.

“He was a lot quieter than you. It worried me a lot at first, but he had a really good reason to be. Did you know he and his Keith…?”

“Were married? Yeah, definitely knew that,” Lance sighed. “Did he and… our Keith…?”

“No. It was weird, but once Keith realised it wasn’t _you_ it was like he wanted nothing to do with the other Lance. Lance asked me about it. I had to explain to him that you two had a very different relationship here. Which, can I just say, that was totally the biggest mind blowing thing I have ever learned, ever,” Hunk gushed.

“Really? The mechanised lions and evil alien empire wasn’t enough for you?” Lance laughed.

“What that? That was like, five years ago. Old news _now,”_ Hunk chuckled. “Anyway, the other Lance spent most of his time with me. He opened up after a bit, wasn’t that much different than you after that.”

“Did he have nightmares too?” Lance asked quietly.

Hunk nodded sadly. “Yeah, he did. He shared my room more than he was in here.”

“Oh thank goodness,” Lance breathed in relief. “Thank you so much for helping him, Hunk. I was… I worried about that, when I was over there.”

“You don’t need to thank me for that, man. You’re my best friend, no matter what universe you’re from,” Hunk said. “Speaking of which… are you going to be alright on your own tonight?”

“I think so.”

“Well, my door is always open, buddy. You get some sleep, alright?”

“You know, I’m getting kinda tired of people telling me that,” Lance huffed good naturedly. “Night, Hunk.”

“Night, Lance. It’s good to have you back,” Hunk added before heading out the door.

Lance let himself fall back onto his bed with a heavy thunk. “It’s good to be back… isn’t it?”

Blue purred in the back of his mind, so he guessed that was enough of an answer for him. At least he had her again.

 

Lance woke up shivering and alone, so tightly encased in his cocoon of blankets he could barely move. He did his best to roll onto his side, working on steadying in breathing and trying to focus. The guilt was still there, the ice in his chest that told him it was his fault he’d lost Blue, that he’d both hurt her and very nearly killed her entirely. He knew she was alive again, he knew she didn’t blame him and that she was even proud of him for his decision. It didn’t absolve the guilt. Lance knew he’d never be fully free of it, he’d accepted that in the cave, but he wasn’t going to let it keep him from Blue.

Lance managed to catch his breath and for what felt like ages did nothing but lay staring into the near darkness of his room. He briefly debated going to Hunk, and just as quickly shot the idea down. Instead, he struggled out of his blanket prison and slipped on his shoes. It was still early in the night, late enough that everyone else would be asleep but not early enough for even morning birds like Shiro to be up. Lance stood in the hallway outside his door, trying to decide where to go. He didn’t have the energy to train, and being able to feel Blue in the back of his mind was enough not to warrant a visit to the hangar. Lance’s feet started moving without a conscious decision on his part, and he decided to simply let them take him where they may.

He ended up on the observation deck, somewhere he honestly very, very rarely went on his own. Tonight, however, it felt perfect.

Lance curled up in the corner of the window seat and staring out at the stars. When he was younger, he’d go through immense troubles to sneak his horde of siblings out of the house in the middle of the night for meteor showers or nights of clear star gazing. When he got to the Garrison, he would sneak up to the roof on his own to do the same. It reminded him of a simpler time, when his biggest worries were not waking his parents and making sure he’d made an accurate headcount on the way in and out of the house.

Lance let his head rest against the cool glass. He hoped the other Lance had received as warm as a reception as Lance had promised. He hoped the other Keith was happy. He hoped _they_ would be happy.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

Lance jumped so hard his forehead cracked against the glass and he nearly fell off his perch. After a bit of very dignified flailing, he steadied himself enough to look over at a vaguely amused looking Keith and let himself relax back into the wall.

“No,” Lance admitted.

“Nightmares?” Keith guessed, crossing the small room to settle in the corner opposite of him.

“Yeah,” Lance sighed. “Why are you up?”

“Couldn’t fall asleep, heard you leaving your room. I… I’m sorry, Lance,” Keith said.

Lance cocked his head to the side, watching Keith curiously. The only light available was from the soft glow of the stars, and while it was enough to see by it wasn’t the best for making out Keith’s expression.

“What for?” Lance asked.

Keith turned his head to stare out at the stars, visibly struggling for a moment. “When you… When the crystal exploded and we lost sight of you… I realised you’d died, you’d given your life to save all of us, to save _everything_ … and the last thing you heard me say to you was me calling you an idiot,” He whispered. “And when the other Lance came flying out I thought… I thought I had a second chance, but then it wasn’t _you_. It wasn’t the _right_ you, and I didn’t know if you would ever…”

Lance closed the distance between them, reaching out to gently turn Keith’s face back to him. He knew he shouldn’t, he wasn’t allowed to touch in this world.

“Hey, look at me,” Lance ordered, voice as gentle as he could make it. “Look at me, Keith. I’m alive. I’m alive, and I’m sitting here, right next to you. I’m back. I don’t blame you, I have it on good authority by _two_ of you now that I am in fact an idiot. It’s alright.”

Keith stared at him, blinking away actual _tears_. Lance couldn’t stop himself from brushing one away with his thumb, fully aware that he was practically cradling Keith’s face. _His_ Keith. The _right_ Keith, but also the _wrong_ one.

Keith was suddenly moving, shoving Lance backwards and away. Lance’s back hit the seat and he had just long enough to think how badly he’d screwed up now before a mouth was pressing against him, its owner stretching out on top of him. Lance’s brain shorted out. After a moment, Keith slowly pulled back, eyes widening in terror. Lance had just enough presence of mind to shoot out his hand and grab Keith’s shirt before he could fully retreat. He quickly reached up to run a hand over and through Keith’s hair.

“Mullet. That’s definitely the mullet. Oh my god. I am home. You’re the right Keith,” Lance babbled.

“What are you _talking_ about?” Keith growled, half-heartedly trying to free himself. “Look, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking-”

“ _Please_ don’t think some more,” Lance begged, yanking him back down.

Keith let out surprised noise against his lips, stiffening for all of two seconds before melting against him. Lance curled a hand into his hair, into that stupid mullet that he loved so damn much because it meant that he was _home_ and that this was _his._ Nothing in that moment mattered more than the slide of Keith’s lips against his, the solid weight of his body on his, the radiating _warmth_ of him.

It wasn’t immediate, but Lance could feel the ice in his chest begin to thaw.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all folks.


End file.
